This issue of the Bulletin forms one of the first attempts to ask how relevant is the new writing on social exclusion that has been largely in and about the North, to the large body of work on poverty and poverty reduction in the South. The contributors explore the usefulness of this concept that explains in particular the institutional processes by which the poor are excluded from participating in society. They argue that the new thinking on social exclusion promises the beginning of a fertile dialogue between North and South:; that the debate in the North does offer new lessons for the South, and, conversely, that there are insights from the South that will enrich debate in the North.